At a pier in Alameda, California, people touring the USS Hornet — an aircraft carrier that’s now a museum — was one of many visual images of Memorial Day.
Wars, soldiers, democracy and freedom come to mind on this, and other, national holidays.
But on this particular Memorial Day, it was the novel, The Old Man and the Sea, that came to mind… Ernest Hemingway’s tale of an aging Cuban fisherman’s struggle to land a giant marlin, and his ensuing battle to fend off sharks chomping away at what he’d fought so hard for.
Hemingway’s novel seems analogous to various current events.
The news about Texas legislators chomping at voter’s rights, for example, with one of the most restrictive voting bills in the country.
And former Army general — and National Security Advisor in the Trump administration — Michael Flynn, apparently, suggesting a Myanmar-style coup, here in America. Myanmar’s military ousted the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others in her democratically-elected government.
And Sidney Powell, the former member of Mr. Trump’s legal team, suggesting the ex-president could be reinstated.
And Senate Republicans blocking a bill that would have established a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, after chomping at it for weeks on end.
Picture America — and democracy — as the marlin in the Hemingway novel.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.